72 A NEW ZEALAND NATURALIST S CALENDAR. 



The larger fruits are of course not swallowed, but they are 

 frequently carried away to some quiet place to be eaten, 

 the fleshy portion alone being taken and the stone or seed 

 left. In this way many people lose valuable fruit, as the 

 thrushes will come early in the morning and carry off 

 apricots or peaches from the walls of dwelling-houses. 



The number and variety of native plants with succulent 

 fruits is very considerable, and it is curious in how many 

 different families of plants the device is adopted. It arises 

 no doubt from the fact that in a country largely bush- 

 covered and destitute of mammalia, birds would be the 

 only available living agents which could be utilised. I find 

 that out of some 38 genera of trees and shrubs represented 

 in the bush in and around Dunedin no less than 23 have 

 distinctly succulent and attractive fruit, while even of 

 the remaining 15 some are more or less succulent and 

 fleshy, even though not particularly attractive. Among 

 these 23 genera the devices for attraction are numerous. 

 The most striking perhaps are found in the Pine trees 

 belonging to the genus Podocarpus (Black Pine or Matai,* 

 Miro,t and Totaral), where the so-called fruit is really only 

 a brightly-coloured swollen stalk on the top of which one 

 or more small naked seeds are perched. These false berries 

 are greedily eaten by many birds, but it has to be 

 remembered that by settlement and destruction of bush 

 the pigeons and kakas which fed so largely on these fruits 

 have been driven away from the neighbourhood of our 

 towns. In tutu (Coriaria) the petals, which have lost 

 their function as petals and are small, green, and unattrac- 

 tive in the flower, grow after flowering and ultimately 

 swell up full of purple juice, and enclose the small dry fruit 

 within them. It is curiously corroborative of the feeble 

 digestive action of the birds' stomachs that they can eat, 

 and no doubt swallow, the seeds of tutu, which are the 

 most poisonous portion of these very poisonous plants, 

 without any injury. I have not myself seen birds eating 

 the fruit of tutu probably many settlers have but the 



* P. spicata. t P. ferruginea. J P. Totara. 



